An article appearing in “Science” on 24 April 2018 reports on new evidence concerning just when early humans began taking to the sea. The article suggests that Stone Age people may have indeed voyaged the Mediterranean Sea long before we thought possible.

A decade ago researchers found stone tools on the Island of Crete that dated back to at least 130,000 years and most archaeologists at the time were nothing short of stunned! Many were skeptical and remain so even today. However, over the past decade researchers at the site have built a rather convincing case for ancient seafaring during the Stone Age! And that’s not all because that evidence strongly suggests the possibility that Neanderthals were the sailors!!

I’ve blogged about this subject before postulating that seafaring was even undertaken by Homo erectus which I still hold to. That evidence suggesting Neanderthals were also seafarers does NOT surprise me in the least. In fact, I would expect it to be so!

What this newest evidence suggests is that seafaring predates modern humans both on the cognitive level and the technology level. Prior to this evidence the earliest seafarers were assumed to be from the Bronze Age. The Bronze Age ran from around 3300 to 1200 BC in the Near East and South Asia, and from around 3222 to 300 BC in Europe and East Asia. In contrast, the Stone Age lasted about 3.4 million years ending sometime between 8700 BCE and 2000 BCE. Continue Reading

800,000 years ago ancestors of Homo erectus were the dominate ancient human ancestor species on the planet. Mainstream science believes H. erectus first came out of Africa and migrated into the Levant and then spread across Asia, Europe, and the Far East (but never in the Americas of course). So is this true or is this some poppycock theory designed to hide the true origins of humanity today? Why do I ask such a question? Because there is apparent evidence that contradicts this theory about H. erectus and all those before them and, for that matter, it contradicts the entire theory of human evolution!

China’s Ming Dynasty & Lady Dai

In 2011 road workers in China uncovered a tomb from the Ming Dynasty period (700 years ago) near Taizhou in Eastern China. Inside the coffin archaeologist found layers of silk and linen covered in some unknown brown liquid and beneath these linens the found the remains of a woman. The remains were almost perfectly intact and well-preserved. Body, hair, skin, clothing, and jewelry we well-preserved and even her eyebrows and eyelashes were perfectly preserved! Researchers still don’t know what the brown liquid was but some have speculated that it may have been ground water that seeped into the coffin at some point. They don’t know what the brown liquid was but it may have been ground water? You mean they can’t identify groundwater????

Remains of Lady Dai, China

Ok nothing really mysterious about this find but it’s interesting nevertheless and obviously the Ming Dynasty had some highly skillful burial and preservation techniques. But then there is Lady Dai…………. Lady Dai is also known as Xin Zhui and the Marquise of Dai. Here ASTOUNDING remains were first found in 1971. She was the wife of Li Cang the Marquis of Dai during the Western Han Dynasty. Her tomb was discovered inside a hill in Hunan, China. The remains along with several artifacts and documents are now in the care of the Hunan Museum. The remains of Lady Dai are so exceptionally preserved that it is nothing short of astounding! Continue Reading

Back in 1914 workers at a stone quarry in Bonn-Oberkassel, Germany discovered two human skeletons and bones from a dog. Along with these find they also found two art works made of bones and antlers. The two human skeletons and the dog were in a common grave at the site. The dog bones represent one of the oldest known remains of a domesticated dog on record and that dog was unique to Central Europe around 14 kya.

The couple and the dog were part of the people of Upper Kassel in the Rhine Valley who were ice age hunter-gatherers. The skeletal remains of the couple have been dated to about 11.5–12.1 kya +/- 100 years. Researchers have used the skulls of both the male and female to reconstruct their faces both of whom look very European. The male has a strong jutting lower jaw and chin which is a bit unusual in my opinion.

The people of Kassel lived in round tents made of leather that were similar to a yurt. Remains of these structures have also been found at Gonnersdorf and other places. What this may indicate is that these hunter-gatherers may have lived in a single area for part of the year and then they’d move on to another area most likely because they were following animal herds which was their primary source of food. These structures were not easy to erect or take down so this is why researchers think they put them up and stayed in a certain area for part of the year.

Oberdassel skeletal remains. Woman is at the top, man in the middle, and dog bones at the bottom.

It’s believed that these people used a bow of the Holmegaard type. An arrowhead found at the site has signs of being used and then retouched a few times. It also had traces of birch pitch which was used to affix the flint stone arrowhead to an arrow, spear, or knife made of bone, wood, or other material.

“…There is a major change underway in how we understand “out of Africa”. I don’t think the traditional framing of “out of Africa” is very effective anymore, as leaving Africa is a tiny event, repeated many times over the last several hundred thousand years.

In the context of other discoveries, I think that “modern human” has lost much of the meaning it may once have had.

The big questions concern what was happening inside Africa, where many genetically diverse populations existed and interacted. How many ancestral populations gave rise to the growing population of modern humans after 100,000 years ago? How many African-derived people were involved in mixture with Neanderthals 250,000 years ago, or 120,000 years ago? Did African-derived humans make it to China, or to Java, before 100,000 years ago?

Those are open questions, with some evidence pointing toward faster, more widespread dispersal, more mixture, and repeated genetic replacements.”

This is a quote from Paleoanthropologist Dr John Hawks, University of Wisconsin-Madison, from one of his recent blog posts (see link below) and it is nothing short of astounding because supporters of the OOA theory are now being forced to modify the theory and the way we understand it and much of the change now taking place with this theory come from a recently discovered jawbone from the Misliya Cave in Israel. This jawbone is the oldest known human remains found outside of Africa. It proves that humans, Homo sapiens, came out of Africa far earlier than thought! The jawbone has been dated between 177-194 kyr.

The jawbone is from a young adult found in Misliya Cave on Mt Carmel, Israel on the western slopes. Blades and stone tools were also found and appear to be rather sophisticated. Several hearths and burned animal bones were also found. The teeth are modern in size and do NOT resemble Neanderthal teeth. The bone morphology does NOT resemble European Neanderthals either.

Being hailed as possible evidence for the earliest human remains found outside of Africa Dr Hawks is NOT so sure about that because he’s not sure the jawbone belongs to Homo sapiens. In fact, he suspects it might be from an individual who was a HYBRID with a Neanderthal style body! Hawks says the discovery raises more questions than it gives us answers.

Hawks no longer thinks the traditional framing of the OOA is effective any longer and I’d say AMEN to that. In his post he asks the question as to just what ancient human ancestors were doing inside Africa. He says growing evidence is pointing to faster, more widespread dispersal, more MIXTURES (hybridization), and repeated genetic replacements!!

Well I’m glad to see Dr Hawks getting onboard!! As I’ve said before on this blog I think MOST of what we are looking at when it comes to human fossil remains are evidence of HYBRIDS and various species of ancient human ancestors coexisting. I think there was a LOT OF MIXTURE (interbreeding) between these various species and that modern humans today are the HYBRID RESULT of that interbreeding!! Glad to see I’m NOT the only one that thinks so! Now if we can just begin to weed out those skulls of prehistoric apes we are calling human ancestors we’ll be on the RIGHT track! As for the OOA in light of GROWING NEW EVIDENCE it is going to have to be modified or it will no longer be relevant!!!

When we think of Stone Age people we most often think of CAVE MEN because we’ve been told that humans during this time lived in caves BUT that is NOT the case! I’m sure some did but most lived in earthen huts which they reused. In fact, it appears from the evidence that they reused them for a thousand years in Norway even though they may have stood empty for long periods of time. Because they were used so long means that Stone Age people maintained them so they could be reused. This evidence comes from a doctoral thesis by Archaeologist Siljie Fretheim at the NTNU Dept of Archaeology & Cultural History in Norway. Her conclusions about Stone Age people tell a very different story about Stone Age people than our children are taught in school.

The Mesolithic Period in Norway spanned about 5500 years and began around 9500 BCE. The people during that time were hunter-gatherers and they first lived in tents made of animal hides and as time went on their dwellings became more permanent because they started building pit houses as did many other people around Continue Reading

Earlier this month it was announced that a large international research team discovered the earliest known modern human fossil outside of Africa and they interpret the find to mean that modern humans left Africa at least 50k years earlier than previously thought which, frankly, may or may not be so.

The fossil is part of a left hemi-maxilla with teeth (upper jaw bone, simply). Researchers say that the find also indicates that modern humans may have been interacting over a longer period of time with other archaic humans such as Neanderthals et al. The jawbone was discovered at a site known as Misliya Cave in Israel which is one of several sites on Mt Carmel. Dating suggests the jawbone is 175-200 kya. It has been thought that modern humans first migrated out of Africa and into the Levant around 50 kya but this jawbone proves otherwise.

The jawbone itself has many features of Homo sapiens sapiens (modern humans) BUT it also has features of Neanderthals and “other human groups.” And what might those “other human groups” be I ask? Homo erectus most likely and combinations (hybrids) of all of the above!! Continue Reading

In Part 1 I posted about recent claims by Dr. Gordon Gallup that in the late 1920s a primate lab in Florida impregnated a female chimp with human male sperm and that the result was a living human-chimp hybrid. Due to moral concerns and the religious attitude of the US at that time and because of several moral questions the scientists involved in that endeavor terminated the infant a few weeks after it was born. I also posted about Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s program to create a human-ape hybrid under the direction of Dr Ilya Ivanov and that we still don’t know for certain if that program was successful or not. In this post I will address some of the “logistics” involved in creating hybrids in general and specifically human-ape hybrids.

Ape-Human Chromosome Comparison Chart

In the above graphic we see the chromosome comparisons of Orangutans, Gorillas, Chimps, and Humans. As you can see there are many similarities but there are also some differences. The similarities are due to humans and apes sharing a common ancestor about 7 mya (million years ago). As we diverged from that common ancestor some of our chromosomes changed as did those of the other primates so there are still similarities we share but there are some differences too. Continue Reading

A few days ago I posted about a MAJOR advance in genetic science involving the first known cloning of two monkey’s in China. The cloning experiment was a success and what that means is that we have now breached the last border for cloning primates making it now possible to even clone humans. As if that were not enough now something disturbing is brewing to the point that it is now being reported in the mainstream media. Scientists involved in the cloning said they have no intention of cloning humans and IF you believe that then I might interest you in buying a bridge to nowhere! I can absolutely guarantee you that some scientist in some lab somewhere WILL attempt to clone a human being!! But that is not the story in this post. Rather there is something perhaps even more disturbing than human cloning that very possibly has already taken place perhaps longer ago than we might wish to think and it involves the creation of something known as a “humanzee.” Or should I put that in the plural?

Dr Gordon Gallup is an evolutionary psychologist and he is the man who coined the term “humanzee” which is the name for a human-chimpanzee hybrid! Scientifically and theoretically it IS possible to breed a human and chimpanzee, bonobo, orangutan, and perhaps even other apes such as the gorilla. Sound like science fiction? Well think again because according to Dr Gallup this feat has ALREADY BEEN ACCOMPLISHED!!

Photo of humanzee?

Throughout the 20th century this hybridization was attempted more than once. Perhaps the most famous attempt was under former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin who wanted to create a super-soldier part man and part ape. In the old Soviet Union there were many secrets and information about what Soviet scientists were working on was rare and sometimes misleading. But what we do know is that Stalin actually DID have such an experiment going under Dr Ilya Ivanov. The question is did Ivanov succeed? Most information we have on the experiments indicates that he failed but that information may or may NOT be so. The Soviets were renowned for NOT reporting the truth. However, there was another experiment trying to create a humanzee and that experiment took place in the United States in Florida in the 1920’s according to Dr Gordon Gallup and it WAS SUCCESSFUL!! Continue Reading

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